William Tyler
Freedom: Found, Lost, and Found Again: The Story of The Baltic States in the 20th Century
William Tyler - Freedom: Found, Lost, and Found Again: The Story of The Baltic States in the 20th Century
- It’s half past five here, so I shall say from Britain good evening, whatever the time is wherever you are listening. And thank you for joining me. Let me say just at the beginning, just a little note, I’m taking two weeks off, you’ll be delighted to hear, but I’m back on the 2nd of May when I’m beginning a whole series about Russia beginning with the early czars, telling the whole story of the Romanovs, and then going beyond that up to Putin. And actually, Putin figures in what I’m saying today. I’m talking about the three Baltic states. And I sent you a map so those of you who were unsure of your European geography can be sure of what we’re talking about. The three Baltic states from the south going northwards are Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. Lithuania is very German-oriented historically, Estonia is very Finnish historically, particularly Estonian language, and Latvia is, well, Latvia, as we shall see. They’ve broken into both public and arguably political consciousness since Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine, why? Well, if analysts are correct, and I believe the political analysts are absolutely correct, Russia, or at least Putin, is determined to reclaim the lost lands of the old USSR, the Soviet Empire. So the question is, where might he go after Ukraine? Well, maybe Georgia again and Moldova, because neither Georgia or Moldova are either members of NATO or the European Union. So he would be sure, as far as any of us are sure about anything, that NATO would not intervene. However, he might go for the three Baltic states, but they are members both of the European Union and of NATO. And so you would think that, in his own interest, he wouldn’t provoke the West. Well, that’s not necessarily true. There are three reasons why Putin might choose, if he was to advance further than the Ukraine, to target Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.
If you look at your map, you will see that the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, the old German Konigsberg, same city, the Kaliningrad Oblast, the Kaliningrad region on your map, lies between Poland and Lithuania. You’ll also notice that Belarus, which to all intents and purposes Putin controls, is just a little bit further east of Kaliningrad. In fact, the gap between Kaliningrad and Belarus is only 40 miles in length. It’s called, after a town in the region, the Suwalki Gap, S-U-W-A-L-K-I, Suwalki, the Suwalki Gap. 40 miles, wow. He could cross from Belarus to Kaliningrad, Kaliningrad to Belarus, and cut off Lithuania, and therefore, Latvia and Estonia. He could cut the three of them off from the rest of NATO and the EU making a slice between Lithuania and Poland. Secondly, his divorced wife came from Kaliningrad. And whether that’s important or not I’m not sure, but it was often said when he was married to her that it was important in his thinking. And the third reason is the same reason that Hitler in the ‘30s went into the Rhineland, he might just want to test the water. Would NATO actually risk nuclear war, or as France and Britain did in the case of the Rhineland, simply let Hitler get away with it? We know that Hitler had given his generals orders that if there was resistance from the allies then the German army was to withdraw. There wasn’t, and he saw a green light for continuing an aggressive policy.
So all I’m saying is that those three Baltic states, which were Russian, and when I say were Russian, they were part of Russia, part of Russia, then they look like targets to me. And certainly if you feed into that, that, at the moment, the Russians are undertaking military exercises in Kaliningrad, Kaliningrad is heavily armoured in terms of Russian forces and they’re undertaking manoeuvres, the Belarusians are already fully armed because of the Ukraine, it will take very little for Russian troops to advance from Kaliningrad to Belarus and cut the Baltic states from the rest of NATO and the EU. It’s a frightening prospect in many respects, but its a realistic prospect, I fear. So the question is, I’ve said that those three Baltic states were Russian, well, how long were they Russian? How long have they been Russian? Well, the answer is that, in terms of all of them with the exception of Lithuania, that is to say Latvia and Estonia, became Russian as far back as 1721 when Russia defeated north Sweden, Charles XII, Sweden, defeated by Peter the great, Russia, in 1721. And at the peace treaty, the Treaty of Nystad, N-Y-S-T-A-D, a town now in southern Finland, Russia gained sovereignty over both Latvia and Estonia. By the end of the 18th century, 1795, Russia had gained control of Lithuania when the great powers in Europe had divided Poland up. It’s the third partition of Poland. Poland had ceased to exist, and so Lithuania then became Russian in 1795. So it’s the 18th century that Russia first commanded the three Baltic states.
And all three remained Russian in a czarist Russian empire until the czarist Russian empire collapsed in the revolution of 1917. Seizing their chance, all three of them claimed independence. And one could say by the grace of God, they managed to keep that independence in the interwar years up until the outbreak of the Second World War. And then they suffered enormously, both from Russian and German occupation, Russian, then German, then Russian again. And when peace came to Europe in 1945, the three Baltic states found themselves on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain. They found themselves ensconced in Stalinist Russia where they remained all the way through until the collapse of the Soviet Empire in 1991, when, again, they claimed freedom. And they’ve enjoyed freedom since 1991, joining both NATO and the EU for economic, but mainly for defence purposes, because Russia is always poised, as it were, the great bear with its paws raised ready to pounce given an opportunity on those three Baltic states. So it is, as I said in the title to my talk, freedom gained in 1917, freedom lost during the war and at the end of the war in '45, and freedom regained in 1991. Some story. I don’t know whether this particular political European rollercoaster is over yet, it may not be. If we go back then to the beginning of the story in the 20th century, as the 20th century dawned, we can note two things. First, Russia, that is czarist Russia, in 1900, 1890s onwards, was pursuing a policy of Russification, turning Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians into good Russians. But they balanced that with giving greater regional autonomy to the Baltic states as well as to the Russian territory of Finland.
I’ve put a big book list on my blog, but the book that, this is the latest on the history of the Baltic States, “A Concise History of the Baltic States” by Plakans, P-L-A-K-A-N-S, published by Cambridge University Press. And he writes this, “The years between 1906 and 1914, outbreak of World War I, remained turbulent in the Baltics containing czarist flirtation with parliamentarian at the Russian national level,” they established a parliament, the Duma, “loosening of censorship, the sharpening of urban electoral competition in the Baltics, and the continuing expansion of the urban industrial force.” In fact, Russia, if Russia had only had a leader unlike Nicholas II, if they’d had someone with any gumption about them at all, and had not the great Prime Minister Stolypin not been assassinated in 1912, then I think they might have made it. They might have made it. But, of course, that wasn’t going to happen. In 1913, however, the House of Romanov, the ruling house of Russia, celebrated their tercentenary amongst massive nationalist rejoicing. A year later, they found themselves at war with Germany, again, with huge national support. But it was a fragile covering in Russia of what was, in fact, a country that was about to boil over. And when the war went badly, it boiled over in 1917 with two revolutions. The first we could describe as a liberal revolution, and the second, the October, the Marxist-Leninist revolution. Perhaps Putin should listen and know some history.
Losing the First World War caused the overthrow of the Russian czars. And of course, one of the major contributory factors to the overthrow of the Soviet Union was the defeat in Afghanistan. Might we see this repeated by defeat in the Ukraine and the overthrow of Putin? I wouldn’t put money on it, but it is and it remains a possibility. So when the revolutions came in 1917, the Baltic states along with Finland, took the opportunity and grabbed freedom to break away from Russia. They never liked the Russians anyhow. They felt the Russians were occupiers, which indeed they were. And Plakans writes this, “After the armistice at the end of the war in November 1918, when the hostilities ended and a peace conference began at Versailles and Paris in 1919, Most Europeans breed a sigh of relief, but not the three Baltic states, why not?” Because fighting continued there, both with renegade German forces as well as Russian forces, and they didn’t actually get clear until the 1920s. You’ll remember that something similar happened in Poland. It was difficult for them to break away, but they did. And by the middle of the 1920s, all three are three independent countries, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. But Lithuania paid a price for its freedom. It’s lost its capital, which is its capital again today, Vilnius, V-I-L-N-I-U-S. It lost its capital, Vilnius, to Poland. Poland itself had broken away from the Russian Empire at the end of the First World War and it took the south area, the southern region of Lithuania, including its capital, so much so that the Lithuanians had to establish a temporary capital at Kaunas, K-A-U-N-A-S, further north in Lithuania.
But in 1921, Latvia and Estonia joined the League of Nations, and in 1922, they were followed by Lithuania. So of course there was no European Union, but they are part of the international picture. They have international status, they have seats in the League of Nations as independent territories. Of course, it’s a very confused area in terms of population. If we take Vilnius, which had been the capital of the Russian province of Lithuania and had now been seized by Poland, if we look at Vilnius’s population in the interwar years, we discover that there were only 1% Lithuanian living in its capital. There was 1% Belarusian, 4% Russian, only 4% Russian, 28% Jewish, and 65% Polish. Now, that is what makes all of this whole area of Central Europe so difficult. We’ve been seeing pictures of Ukrainian refugees heading north to the Ukrainian city of Lviv where they hope to get trains into Poland. But Lviv used to be Lwow, and under the Austria-Hungarian Empire, it was Polish, it was part of Habsburg Galicia. And the problem there is the Ukrainian massacred Poles. The stories from all of this part of Europe are horrifying. And all of you who are Jewish know that very well and many of you may well indeed come from one of these three Baltic states.
The years of interwar peace and freedom proved short-lived when, in June 1940, June 1940, when Britain was about to, it looked across the world about to be invaded and lose, in that same month of June 1940 when France surrendered and Britain was alone, Germany and Russia signed an agreement, the so-called Molotov and Ribbentrop Pact, Molotov being the Russian foreign minister and Ribbentrop the German foreign minister. And they came to an agreement, and part of that agreement allowed Russia to take the three Baltic states. There’s no one to defend them. Europe has collapsed. Free Europe is on this island, and there was no way Britain could do anything to support the three Baltic states and the Russians seized all. But a year later, in June 1941, Germany abrogated the pact with Russia and launched Operation Barbarossa against Russia and the German armies seized Lithuania and Latvia from the Russians within two weeks. So enormously successful was the conquest by the Germans of the Russian-occupied Lithuania and Latvia that the Germans thought it was going to be a doddle simply to march to Moscow and defeat Russia. This is the great Timothy Snyder, who’s written so many wonderful books about the area called “Bloodlands.” And Professor Snyder writes, “Franz Halder, chief of staff of the German army, confided to his diary on the 3rd of July, 1941,” i.e. a month after Operation Barbarossa started, “that he believed that the war had been won. By the end of August, the Germans had added Estonia.”
They weren’t ripping through. Well, of course we know that the end of the story is very different than that, but at the beginning… And that’s the message for the West now with Ukraine. Why did Russia, how could Russia possibly have forced the Germans back? Simply because it was prepared to sacrifice millions of its own people by destroying the land that the Germans had to advance through which hit the civilian population, and then replacing the soldiers killed with more and more soldiers, an endless supply of cannon fodder. And we learned today that “The Times” of Britain has reported today, “The Times” of London, that Putin is now recalling to the colours ex-soldiers who left in 2012, 10 years ago. He’s recalling them. They’ll have no option. It’s simply to fill the gaps of those Russians killed in Ukraine, and so we should remember what happened to the Germans. And as the Second World War continued and the Germans hold the Baltics, that begins the horror for the region’s Jewish community under Nazi rule. In fact, he goes back before World War II. “In 1935, speaking in Kaliningrad,” which was then German and Konigsberg, “In 1935, Hitler, in a speech to Nazi party members in Kaliningrad, in Konigsberg, said this, he told,” I’m using a book called “The Fall of Hitler’s Fortress City,” which is how the Russians took Konigsberg in 1945 and why it is today Kaliningrad. Again, the book’s on my blog, but we’re talking about 1935 when Hitler made a speech, “in which he told loyal party members that anti-Jewish legislation was in preparation,” '35, “and would become a central aim of the government.
These were the Nuremberg Laws, the Citizenship Law, and the Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honour, which passed into statute on the 15th of September, 1935.” As for Konigsberg and its Jewish population, Isabel Denny writes, “The first Jews had arrived in Konigsberg in 1540. The last left in April 1948 after Russia had retaken. The first synagogue in the town was constructed in 1756. At it’s peak in 1880, bolstered by refugees from pogroms in western Russia, The Jewish population was about 5,000, or 3.6% of the total population of Konigsberg. By the time of the Nazi takeover in 1933, the Jewish population was about 3,200, served by two synagogues. There was a large synagogue in the Lindenstrasse, one of the city’s main streets, and behind it in its back rooms was a Jewish school. There was also a smaller synagogue, Adas Israel, in a residential area of the old city which was attended by Orthodox Jews.” One city, one city, that’s all. You multiply that and we’ve got thousands and thousands and thousands of Jews living in the Baltic states, mostly as an educated middle class, both the German and Russian. Soon, Jews in all three Baltic states were to experience the horrors of the Holocaust. In 1941, when war broke out between Germany and Russia, Professor Snyder writes this, “Right after the invasion began, the Wehrmacht began to starve its Soviet prisoners and special task forces called Einsatzgruppen began to shoot political enemies and Jews. Along with the German Order of Police, the Waffen-SS and the Wehrmacht, and with the participation of local auxiliary police and militias, they began that summer to eliminate Jewish communities as such.”
When it says locals, we’re talking now about local Latvians, Lithuanians, and Estonians, but particularly Latvians. Snyder gives one example amongst so many, so many horrifying examples that could be given, “In Riga, the capital of Latvia, the German Police Commander, Friedrich Jeckeln, and a higher SS police leader, Reichskommissariat Ostland. Jeckeln, a Riga native, had organised the first massive shooting of Jews in August in his former capacity as higher SS police leader for the Ukraine.” He began by shootings Jews in the Ukraine. He’s moved to Riga and he starts in Riga, 1941. “Now, after his transfer to Riga, he brought his industrial shooting members to Latvia. First, he had Soviet prisoners of war dig a a series of pits in the woods near Riga. On a single day, the 30th of November, 1941, Germans and Latvians, and Latvians, marched some 14,000 Jews in columns to the shooting sites, forced them to lie down next to each other in pits, and shot them from above.” I’ve been to Riga and I visited the museum of the war where it tells the horrific story of the Holocaust in Riga and in Latvia in general. It was a most horrifying experience. If you have not been to Riga, you may feel if you’re Jewish that you should visit it. But on the other hand, let me say that it is a horrendous place to visit, the museum, and you need to be prepared for it. The story, you all know the story, but to see in the museum real pictures of the events and to see real objects is both moving and horrifying all at the same time. It was, yeah, it was not, it was a grim experience, let me just leave it like that.
If I go back to, excuse me, if I go back to Plakans again, there were just a couple of things I wanted to share from his magnificent book on the history of the Baltic, and he writes this, “The annihilation of Jews in the Baltic was a seven-month long process involving initially the withdrawal of civil rights for Jews and their shooting in rural localities where they lived. Then came the creation of large urban ghettos, the largest in Riga, Kaunas, and Vilnius, and many smaller ones, and in the months of November and December, the slaughter of most of the inhabitants of these concentrations. As a result of all the actions, by December '41, the vast majority of Jews in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia had been annihilated, approaching 200,000 in Lithuania, 90,000 in Latvia, and 1,000 in Estonia. The number of Jews who were saved from death by Latvians and Lithuanians is relatively small, fewer than 3,000 in Lithuania and several hundred at most in Latvia.” Latvia is still, I have to say that Latvia gives, I’ve been to Latvia twice and it does give you the creeps, I have to say. I’ve also been to Estonia for work. And I didn’t get the same feeling in Estonia, but Latvia is, it’s an uncomfortable feeling. I don’t know. For those of you who are Jewish and have been to Latvia, I guess it’s even worse for you. Although I knew the story, it’s not a family story for me as it is for some of you.
It’s an appalling, it’s a appalling story. “The number in the civilian population who benefited indirectly from these Jewish murders cannot be estimated but must have been considerable. Personal property was looted, empty apartments occupied, stores pillaged and valuables confiscated. The German authorities claimed all Jewish property as their own, but they were unable to enforce these regulations with any degree of consistency.” In other words, particularly Latvia people, Latvians helped themselves. “The Baltics Holocaust eliminated some 90% of the Jewish populations in all three countries. With respect to the Jews, in less than 12 months, mass murder had nearly extinguished an entire population that had been present in the Latvian territory since the 19th century and in the Lithuanian territory since the 16th century.” There is a definition for you of genocide. You see, one of the things I find difficult with the Ukraine is knowing the history of what has happened in the past. And was Putin to invade the Baltic states, the media, in whatever country you are listening to, this talk in the media in the West will portray the Latvians as victims and the Russians as aggressors. There’s no question that the Russians are aggressors and would be in Latvia as they are in Ukraine, but there are significant worries in Ukraine and Latvia about the far right. You know that there are military units in Ukraine who are going into battle with a swastika in the middle of a Ukrainian flag. The media try and make things simple. It’s a moral, good and bad.
Actually, it’s more complex than that. I am not in any way justifying what Russia is doing, but what I’m saying is we’ve got to look very carefully at what’s going on. It’s not good and bad. This isn’t Britain in 1940 against Nazi Germany. It really is not. It’s very worrying in the world we live in where a lot of people get their news and information of the internet, from sources which are often less than accurate. And I worry about how Latvia in particular might be. So don’t forget what the Latvian were party to in the Second World War. Well, in the end, the war end in 1945. Stalin’s troops, the Red Army, have reached Berlin. Britain and America and France reached Berlin later. And we all know what happened to Germany and what happened to Berlin divided. Now, Britain had supported the Baltic states from the very beginning of their independence in 1917. In fact, when I went to Estonia and I was on a European jolly with them, not the EU, but the Council of Europe jolly, I was told that the first country to recognise Estonia’s independence was Britain. And Britain sent a warship to Narva, which is a port absolutely on the border between Estonia and Russia. And so the Estonians are very positive about Britain. In fact, in 1991, Britain again was the first country to recognise Estonia, why? Well, because Britain had a long history of trade in these areas, mainly wood.
Right back into the Middle Ages, we were importing wood from the Baltic states, and iron and amber, but wood was overwhelmingly of importance, particularly in the days of Britain ruling the seas of the world and needing Baltic timber to build our warships because the timber that we needed was not just oak, which we could grow, but other forms of wood. We’d had a long, long history of relationships with the Baltic states. In fact, there’s a book called “Britain and the Baltic,” and I wanted to read you just two short bits from this. The interwar period after Britain has recognised the three Baltic extents, “The interwar period, the Western democracies and Britain in particular, played an important role in the establishment and continued existence of the Baltic states. Latvia saw Great Britain as one of its main allies and the guarantor of its independence. Throughout this period, intensive economic and political relations existed between Great Britain and the three Baltic states.” So why, why did we do nothing to help the three Baltic states remain independent at the war’s end in 1945? And Salman in the book says this, “The incorporation of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia into the Soviet Union in the summer of 1940,” remember, that’s before Operation Barbarossa when the Russians went in, then the Germans throw the Russians out, then the Russians threw the Germans out, in 1945, it’s Russia that occupies them, “did not come as a surprise to Great Britain.
It recognised these acts by the Soviet Union de facto, but not de jure.” In other words, it said, “There’s nothing we can do about the Russian occupation in 1940 or later in 1945. It’s a fact. We don’t agree with it. We believe it to be illegal.” It is not so much different than NATO’s position with Russia and Ukraine, is it? We don’t accept it, but we do nothing about it. And Britain did nothing. “Winston Church considered that the question of the lawfulness of territorial changes in the Baltic should be decided at a post-war peace conference. In the winter of 1942, whilst the war was still on, we were allied to the Soviet Union and British policy towards the Baltic states became unfavourable,” why? Because we didn’t want to upset Uncle Joe, as the British referred to him when the war started. We were prepared to sell the three Baltic states down the river in order to have Stalin, from 1941 onwards, as our ally. Remember that America isn’t in the war at the stage that Stalin becomes our ally. And it was at that point that we sold them down the river. At the end of the war, Churchill, in one of his more flights of fancy moments, had suggested both to the British and to the Americans that we should not stop advancing in Germany, but we should go on into Russia to defeat the Red Army. The Americans thought him mad, as did his cabinet. It’s interesting to wonder whether actually Churchill might have been right. In theory he was right, whether in practise, it wasn’t possible in practise. And if the Americans said no, it wasn’t totally impossible.
But a result of that is that the three Baltic states remained with Stalin’s Russia all the way through to 1991. They lost their independence and there was nothing that the West could do about it because we enter the Cold War. It’s realpolitik. Britain needed Russia as an ally, and were prepared to close our eyes to the fact that we were selling the three Baltic states, whom we had supported before any other country in 1917, were going to throw them to the wolf of Stalin. And that’s precisely what we did. They’re absorbed into the Soviet Union. And Plakans writes this, “In Estonia, the Soviet army took Tallinn, its capital, on September the 21st, 1944. In Latvia, the German forces withdrew from Riga on the 13th of October, moving westward. In Lithuania, the Soviet drive across the country in October brought the Army almost to Mimel on the Baltic coast. Sporadic fighting continued, however, well into the early months of 1945 in all three Baltic countries. In Estonia, the returning Soviets did not established firm control until December of '44. In Lithuania, fighting continue on the coast into January '45. And in Latvia, about 500,000 German soldiers and members of the Latvian Legion continued to hold out in the northeast corner until Hitler’s Germany surrender on the 8th of March, 1945.” And even after that, there was, to use a very modern phrase, guerrilla warfare against the Russians in the three Baltic state.
They never accepted Russian rule, whether czarist or Soviet. But there was nothing they could do about it because Britain wasn’t… You can see why these countries were desperate after 1991 to join the EU and NATO. I had a conversation in London with the Finnish ambassador just before Finland was voting to join or not join the European Union. And I asked him, “Will Finland join the European Union?” To which his answer was, “Yes, of course, because we have no choice.” And by that he didn’t mean economic choice, he meant they had no choice because of the threat of Russia and the EU was a further defence. As a membership, the EU as a further defence against Russian imperialism and aggression. And the Ukraine and Georgia and Moldova had not had EU membership, let alone NATO membership, which has enabled Biden et al. to say, well, almost to wash their hands of the situation. Although we know how difficult it would be to go in, but on the other hand, remember what I was saying about the Rhineland. Putin’s assessment was that we were too weak to go in and we wouldn’t go in. And I said, as regards to the three Baltic states, I’m not sure the argument is he won’t go in because they’re members of EU and NATO. But as I said, he might test the water. And then the question is, would Biden send American troops to die in the Suwalki corridor? Because don’t expect that Europe alone could do it. If Le Pen is elected, she wants to withdraw from NATO, God help us. The German armed forces are so weak and Britain’s are so tiny, only the Americans could hold that line on the three Baltic states. But would they?
And if the Democrats were to lose the next presidential election, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot. We live in troubled times. We live in times when we would like a figure, a European figure like Metternich, even Talleyrand or later Churchill, and we don’t have them. There’s no FDR, there’s no de Gaulle, and there’s no Churchill. Biden and FDR, vote for which one? Churchill and Johnson, vote for which one? Macron or Le Pen and de Gaulle, vote for which one? I think the answers are really clear, and Putin knows that really well. And we are in trouble. And the Baltic states may be where the trouble really bides home. Pray God it doesn’t, and it may well not do, but don’t forget the Baltic states, whatever you do. Under Stalin, of course, the Baltic states were in, were really sort of pushed back, if you like. And Plakans writes this, he says of the Stalinist years the following, “In spite of national cadres,” national sentiment, “Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians all slavishly followed Moscow’s dictates with a mixture of conviction and fear.” That’s important, fear, obviously, but conviction too. Scratch the surface in Europe and you find Marxists and you find neo-Nazis. And sometimes it’s difficult to tell the difference between them. We’ve now been told that, in the second round of the French presidential election, the far left may be supporting the far right.
And Putin began as a KGB officer, a convinced Marxist, and now a neo-Nazi. The terminology, the political terminology of Europe is changing. The political terminology everywhere is changing in the Western world. All I’m saying is, and some of you heard me talk about the crisis in Western democracy, the crisis in Western democracy is to hear the voice of liberalism, of de Gaulle, of Roosevelt, of Churchill, and we don’t always hear it. And Putin knows that. Of course, Stalin died a long time before the end of Soviet rule. Stalin dies in 1953. And I suppose you could right now in retrospect let things began to ease up a little. But as always with Russia, and when I’m going to be talking about Russia, this will come again and again, Russia has always been hung up about the West, always wanting to be the West and catching up and never, ever quite making it. Apparently, Russian troops in Ukraine have been amazed at the quality of the housing that there was or is, or was I suppose, in Ukraine, which they’ve commandeered. They couldn’t believe the gadgets, the food or the comfort and the quality of housing as compared to Russia. Russia has always tried to catch up and has always failed. And of course, in the Cold War, they were spending enormous sums of money of attempting to catch up with America in terms of nuclear weapons, in terms of the exploration of space, money that should logically have been spent on other more basic matters, like food for its population. But finally, came Gorbachev to power in 1995, and the Baltic nationalists could again begin to dream of freedom. After all, Russians talked of perestroika and glasnost, restructuring and openness. They even talked on democratisation.
Gorbachev was the man that Margaret Thatcher said she could do business with. It looked as though he would be able to do the impossible, to gradually move the Soviet Union towards a democratic state. But as you know, that was not possible. There was a counter coup against Gorbachev, and the man who came through that and closed down the USSR and set up the Federation of Russian States was Yeltsin. And Yeltsin had two flaws, and more probably. The first was that he was an alcoholic, and the second was he saw in Putin his successor. I have a soft spot for Yeltsin. Alcoholism is a terrible disease, and he had it, but his heart was in the right place. I suppose you could say a third thing was that he allowed all these Russian billionaires to take off. That’s true, but he did have a sense of democracy, which I don’t think Putin ever had. And as the Soviet Union collapsed and as the whole of Eastern Europe collapsed, and many of you will remember seeing on Christmas Day Ceausescu in that extraordinary scene on the balcony in Bucharest in Romania, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia see their chance of freedom once more as they had in 1917. And they make a bid for freedom. This time, they are supported by the West. As I said, Britain recognised Estonia almost from the very beginning. This is “The Baltic States: A Concise History” again. “The Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian Supreme Councils, that is parliaments, announced complete independence from the USSR as Yeltsin’s Russia broke apart. In Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, Riga, capital of Latvia, and Vilnius, capital of Lithuania, leaders of the Moscow loyalists were placed under arrest on the charge of attempting to overthrow a legally elected government.
The properties of the once omnipotent communist party were seized by police units, pledged to the Supreme Council governments, and the party itself was declared to be an illegal organisation.” They had made it back to freedom. When I was in Estonia, I was told some extraordinary stories by academics. They formed a chain across the Baltics, across all three countries, to stop Russia coming in again. And one young woman, a sociologist academic, said, “I stood in that line in a field, and suddenly, we heard helicopters. And we thought, 'This is it, it’s the Russians. But we stand firm.’ And then the helicopters came nearer, and the loudspeakers said, ‘This is the Estonian army. We are on your side.’” And then I was told a story by a much older man, a professor of adult education in Estonia, and he said that they knew the Russians were advancing towards the Estonia border. The Estonian government, just reestablished, asked any volunteers that would to come to the parliament building and to surround the parliament building holding hands because they thought the Russians would come. And the appalling thing was they were being told by their government, “You’ll be killed, but the television pictures will be shown across Europe and in America. Hopefully, they will come to our aid.” And he said, “I turned to my wife and I said, ‘Look, we of old, we’ve lived our lives. We are going stand because I can’t go through,’” they both said, “We can’t go through another Russian occupation.” And they went there and they held hands. And they were expecting the tanks to come at any moment and open fire. And all they had to defend themselves with was sort of hunting rifles and things which were inside.
So the young were given the hunting rifles, and he and his wife and many, many like them were totally unarmed, civilian, holding hands around the parliament building as a gesture to the world that they were free and they would die in the cause of democracy and freedom. As it happens, the tanks were withdrawn, there was no attack, and the three countries emerge into the light of a new day and a new freedom, freedom regained. Very fast, did the three countries reestablish their democracy? I was told this story… I’d been in Estonia. For some reason or other I couldn’t go with the rest of the Western European party on their plane and I went separately, and they said, “Well, someone will meet you at the airport.” And somebody held my name up, you know, the drill. Actually, it was a very attractive young lady. And I thought, “Oh, gosh, this isn’t going to be easy ‘cause I don’t speak a word at Estonian.” She greeted me in pure, solid Aussie. She was an Estonian, but her family had fled to Australia and now she was determined to come back and offer help. And she had worked in the education department, I think centrally in Sydney in Australia and she went into look after primary education. And what do you do? She’d never been to Estonia. She did speak Estonian, and all she knew about was Australian primary education, which isn’t going to be much use and she realised that. And she said when she went into the office on the first day, she said, “Do any of you know what we’re doing,” basically. And they said, “No, but you need to go and see Mrs So-and-so,” who was very elderly. But she had been the PA to the director of education for Estonia in the interwar period.
So this Aussie girl goes off and meets this elderly woman and says, “Look, what do we do?” And she said, “Oh, perfectly all right, dear.” She said, “I’ve got all the files here if you’d like them.” And she had the whole structure of pre-war Estonia primary education, which my newly-found Aussie friend simply put into practise. I mean, what a fantastic story that is, of being reborn, of freedom lost and freedom regained and there are the papers and they did it, they did it. But anti-Russian feeling runs high, particularly in Estonia. I say at Nava, they are merely yards apart. They still haven’t agreed formally the border between Russia and Estonia. That’s a cause of war. If Putin wants one, that’s a cause for war. There’s also some Russian populations, particularly in that part on the Russian border. And in Latvia, Russians with money have taken over, have taken over the old czarist houses. My wife and I had a holiday in Jurmala, which is a beautiful holiday resort on the Baltic just outside Riga. And we went on a tour around and we went and saw all these posh houses. They’re beautiful. They have very interesting architecture, 19th century houses owned by the Russian aristocracy now owned by Russian oligarchs with armed sentries at the gates with Kalashnikovs.
There’s dodgy money across the Baltics. It’s the Russian story of the modern world, and I’m deeply nervous and have been for a long time about Putin’s aims for the Baltic, and of course fear in the Baltic states, Lithuania because it’s near this Suwalki gap, Estonia because the Russian border is right there. And fear has magnified enormously since the Russian invasion of the Ukraine. But they are all members of NATO and members of the EU. But will NATO, which means will America defend them? I don’t know. Would we risk on our side a third world war with nuclear weapons or would we just let Putin occupy them? We’re back into the difficult questions of the 1930s, but they’re more difficult today, made worse by, to use a Churchill phrase, “the perversions of modern science: nuclear weapons.” I have no answers for you, I only have concerns and questions. And you must come to your own conclusions, but read decent newspapers, decent magazines. And by that I mean not politically motivated ones, just as academic and as sensible journalists as you can find. Listen to decent TV news, listen to anything, read anything that makes sense to you. Read academic books like Snyder, who’s an American historian of the areas I’ve said. Read some of the books on my list and inform yourselves, because this is an area that tonight, tomorrow morning, next week, next month, next year could have an enormous effect on your life and my life. Thanks very much for listening. I’m sure there’s lots of questions. I think it’s half past. It is, so I’ll stop there and see and what some of you have to say. And hopefully some of you will disagree profoundly and tell me so. Okay, Lauren, I’ll take some of the questions. I’ll just have a look.
Q&A and Comments:
No, it’s not the Russian bear behind me. Oh, that’s very clever. No, it’s a polar bear. I’m into bears. Oh, no, no, you don’t want to know that, but I’m fascinated by bears. No, that’s a polar bear that I was bought by the family.
Q: “Is it not Kaliningrad? Kaliningrad?”
A: What did I say? I said, yeah, no, you’re right. Yeah, I missed out a syllable. I’m sorry. People are thanking Susan for the dollar.
Q: “Could you put the Baltic maps up again?”
A: No, I can’t do that, I’m afraid. They were sent to you and they’d be in your email from Lockdown.
It is Kaliningrad. I’m sorry, I pronounced it wrong.
Q: “If the Baltic states belong to NATO, why is it a big deal if the Ukraine wants to belong too?”
A: Well, it’s a fait accompli in the Baltic. It’s not a fait accompli in Ukraine and the Russians definitely don’t want Ukraine to join. Moreover, their view of Ukraine is different because of Kyiv, because that’s where the first Russian state, Rus, began. It’s where Christian orthodoxy began in Russia. They see it as absolutely central to Russia being Russia. It’s as though in America Philadelphia was not American. It is if, in Britain, London was not American. It’s that central to Russian belief about themselves.
Yes, some of Lithuania was Polish. That’s absolutely right. As I say, they moved in in those interwar years and took Vilnius and the south.
Oh yeah, absolutely, your dad would’ve been Polish born in Vilnius in 1926, Debbie, absolutely, and even in 1924.
“The warm water port of the Baltic states which Putin wants,” yes, that’s also possibly true. He would then control the Baltic, which would be a threat to the entire West. That’s absolutely true.
“The Jewish population paid a heavy price.” Peter, you are absolutely right, of course. They paid a terrible price.
Mona says, “I worked in the three Baltic states, Poland, and Belarus when the Russians were forced out of Belarus. When Lukashenko threw us and British Council out, threw us and the British Council out, my students were devastated. And Latvia and Lithuania broke my heart to see beautiful young girls with their benefactors, but it paid for their rent.” Oh, dear God. “The Suwalki is partly Polish, partly Lithuanian.”
“My mother came from Malopolska, Little Poland.” And your questions been answered in Polish, Galicia, in the south, which Lviv is part of, or was part of.
Bernard says, “My family in Lithuania were murdered in June '41 by Lithuanian fascists.” Yes. Yep, yep. It’s what I said, fascism, communism are just under the surface. It’s not clearcut.
“My father’s family came from Dvinsk where many of the Jews were murdered in a nearby forest.” They were, at the beginning, before the Holocaust became that dreadful industrial murder system, they were taken into forests, of which there were a great deal, and shot and and thrown into graves, or in the example that I gave from outside Riga, were pushed into the graves and shot from above. I don’t know which is worse. Nothing, they’re all dreadful.
Q: “What are the differences between them?”
A: Well, language for one thing. The Lithuanians are very Germanic in terms of their history. Kaliningrad, previously Konigsberg, was the headquarters of the Teutonic Knights in the Middle Ages, and the Teutonic Knights become Prussians, so it’s very Germanic. Estonia is very Scandinavian in terms of being with Finland. Latvia is, well, Latvia is Latvia.
Q: “Could you please elaborate on why Latvia made you feel uncomfortable?”
A: Because of the history, because of the history, and because you walk around and you get a funny feeling. And there were so many Russians there, which was also worrying.
“I was spit upon,” says Mona, “in Lithuania when I asked where the synagogue was.” Antisemitism goes along with neo-fascism and neo-Marxism, and it’s there and it’s there. And it’s only just a tiny degree beneath the surface and it comes to the surface.
“I sometimes wonder if some of the murderers who did atrocities because they had no choice and wanted to live or protect their families.” I don’t think that’s true. “Suffered nightmares after the war.” No, I don’t think that’s true because the people that did, if they were not Germans, that’s obviously not true. If they were Latvians or Lithuanians in particular, then they were Christian and not Jewish and it would’ve been deep anti-Semitism.
Roe says, “We can never forget that the world even now pays no heed to Jews. Terrorist attacks in Israel are barely mentioned, such a tragedy. Nevertheless, children and women remain the biggest victims.” Children and women always are the biggest victims in all of these horrors.
“In 1945,” says Bernice, when we travelled from Russia to Poland after the war, our train stopped in Kyiv. Jews came looking for people to help bury Jews that were killed by the Ukrainian people. I still remember, although I was only seven years old.“ Exactly, it’s what I say. None of this is clearcut in Eastern Europe and I don’t like the way that it’s being portrayed like sort of angels on one side and devils on the other. It’s degrees of devilry on all sides. Oh, I’ve lost it, sorry.
"Baltic trade in London,” yes, you’re absolutely right. “The Baltic Exchanges,” is that who, hang on, I’ve got to find that question. I don’t know who asked that. Mm, hang on. I’ve answered those. I’ve lost the bit. I’ll get there.
“Baltic Exchange,” Peter. Yeah, I thought it might be you. “The Baltic Exchange in the city of London.” Yeah, absolutely. Baltic trade was very important. It was very important in the 18th century because of the wood for the ships.
Well, you see, Alison, that’s the problem. She says, “I know that some Ukrainians helped the Nazis murdered Jews during the Second World War. I thought that extreme right wing now only have 2% support.” They do have small support in terms politically, but that doesn’t mean to say that there isn’t a problem in the Ukraine. Why would you accept forces in the Ukrainian army units carrying a swastika? Why would you? It’s worrying.
Michael says, “My late father did military service in the Lithuanian army in the,” whoops, I’ve lost it, “in the early 1920s, but fortunately was able to immigrate to South Africa some years later.” Yeah, well, he got out just in time, as it were.
Harriet says, “You have said the unsayable. Ukraine is not black and white. It is a murky shade of grey. Three years ago, I was in 10 places in the Ukraine and each had mass graves unmarked by any indication that the victims were Jewish. In Makailo,” I can’t pronounce that, “Mykolaiv, once the home of Rebe, Trotsky, Baba, and Nakbambayat, it was described to me with no discernible regret how the Jews were in mass graves in the Jewish cemetery with the adults shot in the eyes and the children buried alive beside them in the 1980s. The gravestones were used as the foundation of our wonderful new bridge and the unmarked graves of the Jews are now covered by the biggest and best sewer in all of Ukraine.” Yeah, Harriet, thank you for that, because it gives us a specific example to what I was trying to say. It’s not black and white, and Western politicians and Western media are, well, portraying it for their own reasons in such a way.
Q: Anthony says, “An uncomfortable listen, particularly having Latvians grandparents and having visited briefly Riga, which I believe was in the Hanseatic League. Any relevance to the behaviour during the war?”
A: No, no, no, no, no. The Hanseatic League is quite a different story, and I can’t think of any link.
John says, John, hi, “Not only did we applaud Uncle Joe, but I heard the Red Army choir singing at Wembley.” I guess, John, I know John well, I guess John means during the war.
“My father was from Maguver in Lithuania. Lithuanians preceded the Nazis in their brutal killings. There were no concentration camps in Lithuania, yet, more than 95% of the population was slaughtered.” This is because they were slaughtered before there were concentration and extermination camps.
“I had a Canadian Estonian, I had a Canadian Estonian roommate in the '70s While Estonia was part of the USSR. She had an Estonian doll in native dress and a flag. It was then I realised that Estonians would never consider themselves to be Russian.” Absolutely true.
Oh, Finland is a different story and a fascinating story. Finland was very, very lucky to escape from the Russian domination. I’ve asked Lockdown would they let me do a talk about Finland because I think it follows on from what I’ve said. And I think it would be, I think people might be interested in that. It’s another complicated story, is Finland.
Q: Yes, well, Ray Bobroff says, “Did Peter the Great join Charles XII of Sweden into the interior of Russia using a scorcher policy, again, starving the Swedish army going into the Russian winter?”
A: Yes, the Swedes were defeated at Poltava. And the Battle of Poltava, the site of it is in the Ukraine. And in the end, Charles, wounded, ill, had to flee to the Ottoman Empire before he managed to get back to Sweden. It’s Sweden’s moment in the sun, if you like. It’s a major European power. The great northern power is how historians normally call it, and it marks the rise of Russia to that sort of international position with the defeat of Charles XII. Thanks, thanks. I’m glad people have enjoyed it.
Q: “Are there there many Russians living now in the Baltic states?”
A: I haven’t got the figures. Yes, there are, particularly in Latvia now. The Estonians made it very difficult. They closed Russian schools down, and when I was there, they were very, very anti-Russian. But the Russians have gradually come back, but Latvia, yeah, a lot. Lithuania is different. Lithuania is different. And Estonia has had support from Finland and Sweden, although Sweden has got, the biggest department store in Riga in Latvia is Swedish.
Q: Bev says, “Could one draw a parallel between the difficulty during World War II to stop Switzerland from buying Nazi gold, i.e. providing foreign currency to Nazi Germany, and the current difficulty in refraining from buying Putin’s gas and oil?”
A: Oh, gosh, that’s a difficult question. Hang on, I’ve got think about that. I’d have to think about that, but I think you’re right. My quick response is, yes, you’re right. And it’s Germany again that’s the problem. And we can blame Merkel for that.
Rose, “One should not forget that JDR was a major antisemite as well, where as Truman actively tried to save the Jews and brought them to USA after the war,” okay.
Q: Michael says, “Is Putin’s playbook not the same as Hitler’s other than the lack of antisemitism?”
A: I’m not sure that Putin isn’t, I don’t know about Putin and Jews. I think it is the same playbook. It’s the domination of Europe, because some of the reports are that he not just wants to reform the USSR, but he actually wants to dominate Europe. And I don’t know, I don’t know what we’re going to do, but I don’t know that our present policy is going to hold. We may let Ukraine go. We will let Ukraine go to Russia, or at least we may let East Ukraine go to Russia, which looks as though he might be satisfied with that.
Sorry, I’ve gone and messed up again. Peter, yes, you are right. I said 1995. I realised at the time I should’ve said 1985.
Q: “Why is Kaliningrad still Russian?”
A: It’s still Russian because it occupied it at the time of the end of the Second World War, because the other bits, that is to say Poland, Belarus, and the three Baltic were controlled by Russia. The Baltic states were part of Russia, and Russia simply kept Kaliningrad. It’s an important place in term as a German history, and it was important for them, somebody said before about ports, it was important for them to keep a port there and they kept Kaliningrad. And they simply couldn’t be removed once they got it.
“During the time of Yeltsin, alcoholism in Russia was widespread. The longevity of the Russian mayor was only 60 years.” There’s a problem in all northern places with alcoholism. When I was in Finland for work, I was told that children as young as eight were becoming alcoholic. And I got up early one morning, over a Friday morning, and there was this huge queue outside a warehouse and they were all elderly. And it was snowing and I thought, “What on Earth’s going on?” and apparently they were queuing for vodka, because it’s very tightly controlled in Russia. And they’d all got their pensions that morning and so they were all queuing for their vodka for the next week.
“In a recent programme on BBC2,” says Jackie, “it was reported that Clinton got on very well with Yeltsin and loathed Putin. In a subsequent meeting with Yeltsin, Clinton said to him 'Your biggest mistake was in making your deputy.’ And Yeltsin sadly agreed and admitted he had made a huge misjudgment. Clinton also said that Putin acted solely with his head and not with his heart.” That’s very interesting, very interesting.
Q: Anthony says, Did the West, particularly US, miss an opportunity after the end of the Cold War to massage the ego of Russia and prevent a breeding ground in which a man like Putin, like Hitler, was able to sell the narrative to Russian people?“
A: Well, you remember Fukuyama’s book, "The End of History,” the American professor. We thought we’d won. You don’t win against Russia, ever. You don’t win. We needed to be alert, back to Churchill in 1945. Judy makes a comment about the lecture, but then says, “Not a simple right or wrong. America’s still working on leading from behind, read: not getting involved, let others do the dirty work.”
Ray, “Museums of the horror of the Nazis and the murderous scamps in the Baltic lands is very well portrayed in Jerusalem,” yeah.
Yes, of course they spoke, sorry, Jonathan says, “A significant percentage of the Baltics spoke Russian as a mother tongue, and the ability to speak Baltic languages is significant for advancement.” That’s right, because Russian was the language in the schools. Same in the Ukraine.
Oh, yeah, Melvin. Yes, I will. “I’m looking forward to the Russian history series. Will you post a reading list?” It’ll be a very long reading list if I do the whole lot, but, yeah, why don’t I simply do that? Yeah, Melvin, you have a good idea. I will do that.
Sherry says, oh, good. This is somebody who’s critical. I like people being critical. “You’ve been far too critical of Biden, Johnson, and Macron. Biden, with the support of UK, France, and Germany, have presented a united front against Russia. Their support for Ukraine is the main reason that Ukraine has been as successful as so far. Yes, we should be immensely grateful to Churchill and Roosevelt, but they were not dealing with a nuclear world.” I think I said that, but I’m sorry, I don’t have your confidence in Biden, in Johnson, or in Macron. I simply don’t think any one of those three is actually up to the job of leading the West. You won’t agree, lots of people won’t agree with me. That’s my view. You are very welcome to have a quite different view. And so, hang on, who was it? Sherry, thank you so much for doing that. It’s really nice when people challenge because that’s what adult education’s always about. Do not accept what I say. If I give new facts, although as Peter pointed out, I got a date wrong. I just simply went and I didn’t correct myself at the time. And as somebody else said, I mispronounce Kaliningrad, which I’ve always done. I’ve always mispronounced that. I’m sorry about all of that. I do make mistakes, but I try and make the facts correct, but the opinions are always mine. You don’t have to agree.
“A friend of mine says,” Ron, “who was born in Riga, moved to US in 80s, tells me Latvia never granted citizenship to Russians living in Latvia when the Soviet Union dissolved.” No, nor did Estonia. “I see that as an excuse,” exactly, exactly. “I see that as an excuse for Putin to invade Latvia to protect Russians in Latvia,” yes. And the same argument will be used in Estonia. And Estonia is the place in the front line with Russia in the north, Lithuania in the south, and Latvia squashed in the middle. Somebody’s answered your question about how you get comments.
Q: “Can you comment on the many thousands of Russians who were relocated into Lithuania post World War II? After independence, many moved back to Russia, but there are still a sizable group still loyal to Russia and who Putin,”
A: Yeah, exactly. That’s the same point as was made above, Dale. Absolutely right. There are problems about this. Yeah, I think I’ve answered that about a book list for Russia. One of you will have to answer that question.
Q: “Did Latvia recognise its behaviour to Jews and apologise?”
A: I’m not sure that it has, but one of you will know better than me. I don’t think it has.
Q: “You talk about reading as a course of action. Would it not be better to advocate re-arming and encouraging Germany and other countries to spend more funds on strengthening our forces?”
A: Of course it would, and I’m not sure what the connection was between reading. I was talking about what? Oh, you mean you mean, Jack Gordon, that we could act politically in our own countries? Well, Germany is re-arming, and now Merkel has gone, and I think they will be spending more funds. And hopefully they will be brought up to par. And you say other countries? Well, the Poles have, you see, the problem in Poland is its government is neo-fascist. And so although it would be very anti-Russian and have large forces available, and efficient ones, we’re opening another Pandora’s box with Poland. Same with Hungary.
Hindi says, “Years ago I taught ESL high school summer school class.” ESL, English as a second language. “I had a student who had registered as Estonia born, but learned that her family was actually Russian. They were so disdainful to the Estonians that this young teenager did not speak one word of Estonian.” Yeah, true.
And Tim says, “It goes to show how historic events were all related to what is happening in Ukraine now.” That’s the point of history. That’s why history should be taught in our schools and why, in most of our countries, history, as part of the school curriculum, is falling down the hierarchy. If you have an understanding of history, you can understand the present and then you can make decent decisions about it.
[Host] Hi, William.
I’d better stop.
So I would love to thank you so much. Thank you so much for this incredible, incredible lectures, as always. And I’d like to say thank you to everyone and we have another webinar coming up at 2:30.
So thank you, William, thank you, everyone, and see everyone back at 2:30. Take care.